Beyond is a global strategic insight and brand strategy studio. We are the strategic insight partner to the world's most influential brands - helping them understand what is emerging, define direction, and decide what to create, what to say, and where to win next. We operate from London and Los Angeles, delivering work across more than 30 markets globally.
We help brands get close to their consumer and clear on their direction. That might mean understanding a new audience, figuring out where to take a product, defining how to enter a new market, or building the consumer intelligence that informs ongoing brand decisions. Every project starts with a real business question and ends with insight that is sharp enough to act on.
Most research agencies confirm what brands already suspect. We go deeper — into the lives, behaviours, and cultural worlds of consumers — to find the unconventional insight that changes the brief. We work exclusively in qualitative research, by design. We are fast, strategic, and embedded partners to the brands we work with. Our work does not sit on shelves. It travels through organisations and informs real decisions.
Both. We sit at the intersection of cultural intelligence and brand strategy. We do the research and we translate it into direction. Brands come to us when they need insight that leads somewhere — not just data that describes where they already are.
Qualitative research is the discipline of understanding people in depth — their motivations, behaviours, beliefs, and cultural worlds — through conversation, observation, and immersion rather than surveys and statistics. It is the right tool when you need to understand the why behind consumer behaviour, not just the what. Beyond works exclusively in qualitative methods because we believe depth of understanding produces better strategic decisions than scale of data alone.
We work with major global brands across sport, culture, lifestyle, beauty, entertainment, consumer goods, retail, and technology. Current and recent clients include Nike, lululemon, The LEGO Group, Netflix, On Running, Coca-Cola, Clinique, Serato, Pinterest, Spotify, and Discord.
We work with senior decision-makers — Chief Marketing Officers, Heads of Strategy, Brand Directors, VP of Product, Directors of Innovation, and Consumer Insights leads. Our clients are usually people who are responsible for making a consequential brand or product decision and need consumer understanding robust enough to act on with confidence.
Every brief is different, but the triggers are usually one of these:
Yes. We have worked with brands at every stage — from category challengers defining their positioning to global giants protecting and growing their lead. What matters is the quality of the question, not the size of the brand.
Every project is designed around the specific question. We do not have a fixed template. We start by getting under the skin of the brief — understanding the business context, the decision that needs to be made, and what kind of consumer understanding will actually move things forward. From there we design the research, go into the field, and translate what we find into strategic direction. Most projects combine research with facilitated sessions that help brand teams absorb and act on what we have found.
It depends on the scope. Immersive projects in one or two markets can move in four to six weeks. Multi-market programmes across six or more geographies typically run over two to three months. Always-on programmes are ongoing by design. We work fast by the standards of the industry — without cutting corners on rigour.
We are built for global. Our team operates across London and Los Angeles, with a delivery network spanning more than 30 markets. We have experience working with global brand teams, regional teams, and the relationship between the two — helping global organisations understand local markets and helping regional teams communicate what they need from global. We deliver work in English and across multiple languages where required.
Yes — and we are often brought in specifically to bridge that gap. Global teams frequently struggle to understand regional consumers, and regional teams struggle to influence global strategy. Our research can serve both: giving global teams the consumer understanding they need to make better decisions, and giving regional teams a shared language to communicate their market back to headquarters.
Immersive IRL is our specialism for deep, in-person, in-context research. We go where the consumer is - into their homes, their cities, their gyms, their stores, their communities. We hike with them, shop with them, train alongside them, attend the events they attend. Clients often join us in the field too. Designers, marketers, and brand leaders who need to get close to the consumer and feel their pain points firsthand - not read about them in a report. There is no substitute for being there. It is the right method when the brief demands real closeness, not reported closeness.
Digital Ethnography is our method for conducting qualitative research at global scale without sacrificing intimacy. Participants document their lives, behaviours, and attitudes through video diaries, photo tasks, and online communities over an extended period. It gives us access to real moments — not recall — across many markets simultaneously. We use it when a project requires breadth of geography alongside depth of understanding.
Multi-Market Qual is our approach to large-scale qualitative research across multiple geographies. We design and field research simultaneously across markets — combining local knowledge with a coherent global framework — to understand how consumer attitudes, behaviours, and cultural contexts differ and where they converge. It is the right method for brands making big strategic bets that need to hold across regions.
An Always-On programme is a continuous consumer intelligence service embedded directly into a brand team. Rather than commissioning one-off research projects, brands subscribe to a rolling programme of insight — quarterly reports, cultural signal tracking, immersive field investigations, and direct access to our team. It keeps brands close to their consumer before decisions have to be made, rather than scrambling to understand them after a problem has emerged.
Out Front™ is Beyond's proprietary always-on cultural insight programme - think of it as a white label insight product, adapted for each client's specific context and needs. The objective is always the same: ensuring a brand stays Out Front. Ahead of their consumer. Ahead of cultural shifts. Ahead of the category. Out Front™ delivers continuous intelligence on consumers, culture, and category trends - keeping brands ahead of what is coming rather than reacting to what has already happened. It includes quarterly intelligence reports, immersive field investigations, cultural signal tracking, and direct strategic partnership with the Beyond team. Currently active with The LEGO Group and Nike Running.
Yes — this is the core of what we do. Whether you need muse profiling, consumer personas, audience segmentation, mindset mapping, or a deep cultural portrait of the people you are designing for, we build the consumer understanding that brands need to make better decisions. We go beyond demographics and stated preferences to understand what people actually value, how they see themselves, and what will earn a place in their lives.
Yes. We specialise in helping global brands localise their proposition — understanding how their brand is perceived in a new geography, what the cultural landscape looks like, where the white space is, and what they would need to do to show up with credibility. We have delivered market entry research across Europe, Asia-Pacific, North America, Latin America, and the Middle East.
Yes. Category expansion is one of our core areas of work. We help brands understand the culture of an activity or category from the inside — who is doing it, what motivates them, what they need from product, where they are underserved, and what the authentic opportunity looks like for a brand entering that space. We have done this work across outdoor, trail running, performance outerwear, supplements, biohacking, beauty, and more.
Yes. Understanding women consumers — their motivations, identities, and relationship with brands, products, and sport — is an area of deep specialism for Beyond. We have delivered work that has repositioned brands in the women's market, defined new product categories for female consumers, and helped brands move beyond surface-level targeting toward genuine cultural resonance.
Yes. Youth culture research and Gen Z consumer insight are core parts of our practice. We understand how younger audiences engage with brands, culture, sport, and product - and what it takes to earn their attention and loyalty rather than simply buying it. We also have access to a global network of approximately 20,000 Gen Z consumers we work with through a specialist partner - giving us both the depth of qualitative understanding and the breadth of reach to make Gen Z insight genuinely representative across markets.
Yes — though we approach it through insight rather than channel strategy. We help brands understand what their consumer actually cares about, what language resonates, and what their brand needs to say to earn a place in people's lives. Consumer insight led communications strategy is one of the most common outputs of our work. We have helped brands translate deep consumer understanding into communication direction across sport, beauty, entertainment, and consumer goods.
Yes. We conduct in-store research, shopping behaviour studies, and purchase decision research that reveals what actually drives a consumer to choose one brand or product over another at the moment of decision. This has been central to our work with retail brands and global sportswear companies.
Sport is our home territory. We have delivered consumer and cultural insight across running, trail running, basketball, football, soccer, golf, tennis, yoga, gym and lifting, pilates and studio culture, hiking, active lifestyle, athleisure, and loungewear. We understand sport culture — not just as a category, but as a lived experience.
Yes. We have delivered insight work for beauty and wellness brands including Clinique and The Nue Co. — covering brand positioning, consumer understanding, muse profiling, and cultural trend mapping in the beauty, supplements, and wellness categories.
Yes. We have worked with Netflix on content strategy research, and with technology and entertainment brands including Spotify, Discord, Serato, and Pinterest. We understand how consumers engage with culture, content, and digital products — and what it takes for brands to earn a meaningful place in that world.
Yes. We are expanding our specialism in sport adjacencies — including biohacking, health optimisation, sports nutrition, health technology, longevity, and performance culture. These categories are growing fast and are deeply connected to the sport and wellness audiences we know well. If your brand operates at the intersection of sport and health, we would love to talk.
Beyond is based in London and Los Angeles, with a hub in Shanghai.
We regularly deliver work across more than 30 markets globally. These include: London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, Beijing, Sydney, Mexico City, Vancouver, Chicago, Miami, and Dubai — among others. If your market is not listed, ask us. Chances are we have worked there or have the network to do so.
Yes — multi-market delivery is one of our core capabilities. We have the network, the methodology, and the experience to run research simultaneously across geographies while maintaining a coherent strategic framework. Our Multi-Market Qual and Digital Ethnography specialisms are specifically designed for this.
Yes. Our clients are global brands, and we work with teams wherever they are headquartered — including New York, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Portland, Tokyo, and Sydney. We travel to our clients and our consumers.
Email us at hello@studiobeyond.co. Tell us what you are working on — even if the brief is not fully formed yet. We are good at helping brands clarify the question before the research begins.
Every project is scoped individually based on the brief, the markets involved, the research methods required, and the timeline. We do not have a fixed rate card. Get in touch and we will give you an honest view of what your project would require.
Yes. Many of our longest client relationships started with a focused first project. We are happy to design something that answers a specific question and demonstrates what working with Beyond feels like — before you commit to a longer or larger engagement.
Yes. We are happy to connect prospective clients with brands we have worked with. Ask us when you get in touch.